Flying Changes

  Eva leans back so her chair is balanced on two legs. This is entirely for my benefit, and is incredibly effective: in my mind's eye I'm already watching her fall backward and crack her skull open.

  I press my lips shut and perch behind her on the bed--close enough to intervene if she topples over.

  As the mattress sags beneath my weight, our eyes lock in the mirror. Hers are fierce and bright and peer out at me from under a fringe of straight blue-black hair. It's been a couple of months since she dyed it, so the hair next to her scalp is blonde again. Left to its own devices, which it never is, her natural hair color is one countless women spend hours and fortunes to achieve. But I don't argue hairstyles. Unlike the Hated Tattoo, hairstyles grow out.

  As Eva glares at me, I drag one foot up over my opposite thigh and then try to do same with the other. I was aiming for the lotus position, but my hamstrings immediately suggest that cross-leggedness would be a more practical choice.

  How depressing. I used to be able to put both my feet behind my head at the same time. Of course, I also used to be able to do the splits and back walkovers.

  After trying in vain to arrange my folded self into a comfortable position, I give up and set my feet back on the floor.

  "So what do you want?" says Eva, glowering at me from the mirror.

  "We need to talk."

  "So talk."

  I draw a deep breath and let my cheeks inflate. "Okay, fine," I say. "I need you to promise me that you'll never do that again. You know the rules--no riding without a helmet, ever."

  "Like that's what you're mad about."

  I stare at her for a moment, rubbing my chin. "It's a large part of it. Hurrah has one eye. What if he refused? Or slipped on takeoff? Or missed the landing? My God, even if he took the jump perfectly, you were completely unprotected! You didn't even have stirrups!"

  Eva blows a raspberry. "He'd have cleared it. Easy."

  I lean forward, speaking urgently. "Eva! Honey. Please listen to me. I know you think you're invincible, but what you did this morning was incredibly stupid."

  "Thanks, Ma."

  "I'm not trying to insult you. I'm just trying to make you see things from my viewpoint."

  She raises her eyes to mine. "Okay fine. So you wanna try to see things from my viewpoint for half a second?"

  I blink at her image in the mirror for a few seconds. "Uh...okay. Yes. Sure."

  "I worked my butt off all winter. I got my grades up. I did really well at Canterbury, and now, for no good reason at all, you're pulling the plug."

  "Honey, I..." I stare at her for a moment, and then drop my head into my hands, wanting to cry. I'm utterly exhausted, and I've already run out of arguments, which strikes me as a singularly bad sign. "Look, I know it seems like I dangled a carrot, and I'm so sorry. It's just...I really appreciate all the work you've done--you have no idea how much--and I knew how badly you wanted to go to Canterbury. I thought I could deal with it. But my heart was in my throat the whole time."

  "This is all because of your stupid accident, isn't it?"

  "Eva!"

  "Oh please, Mother. It happened in the Stone Age. Besides, it was freakish. It's time to let it go."

  Her words cut deeper than she can imagine. Yes, it was freakish--it was completely inexplicable. But what the people around me don't seem to understand is that this is precisely what makes it so scary. Neither Harry nor I did anything wrong. When we came over that jump, his left foreleg blew apart for no reason whatever, sending both of us crashing into the ground. I nearly didn't make it. And Harry? Well, they shot Harry.

  I pause, reflecting. "Would you consider doing just dressage?"

  "No."

  "Because if you did, I'd let you go. I'd even let you ride Hurrah."

  "No!" she says in exasperation. "I want to jump! Why is that so hard for you to understand?"

  Why indeed. I am silent, drumming my fingers against my lips.

  "I want to do this," she says, her eyes burning into mine.

  "I know you do."

  "I want it more than anything I've ever wanted before," she persists. She drops her feet from her desk and swings around to face me.

  "I know."

  "So let me ride at Strafford and just keep shutting your eyes."

  "I beg your pardon?" I say feebly.

  "In Canterbury. You closed your eyes every time I took a jump. Just keep doing it."

  I am speechless with shame. How did she find out?

  Other parents. Other parents sitting in the stands must have told their kids, who in turn told Eva. I'm a freak and my kid knows it.

  "Eva, I'm so sorry," I whisper.

  "Yeah, whatever. So are we done here?"

  I blink.

  "I said, are we done here? Or am I supposed to try to make you feel better and pretend we've shared a 'moment' because you've admitted that it 'seems' like you dangled a carrot? Because you know, maybe it makes you feel better, but it sure doesn't help me."

  "I...uh," I say, straightening up and trying not to blink because if I do I'll set free the tears that quiver along my lower lids. "Yes. I guess we're done."

  She turns to the window, folds her arms across her chest, and then crosses her legs. One foot bobs violently. "Figures," she says.

  As I reach the door, she calls after me. "And by the way, Ma, it doesn't 'seem' like you dangled a carrot. You did. A big fat one."

  I head back to the bathroom, fighting tears, and having accomplished absolutely nothing.

  I slug the rest of my now-tepid coffee down like bourbon--indeed, wishing it were--and undress.

  As I stand naked in front of the tub fussing with the taps, I ponder in a dispirited fashion about how low my breasts hang when I'm bent at the waist. I'm not exactly falling apart, but I'm well aware of what side of the mountain I'm on. I'm melting like a candle. I weigh exactly the same as I did four years ago, but everything's sliding downward.

  Our house was built in 1843, and the pipes moan and screech like the innards of a tanker. One second the water is too cold; the next, it's hot enough to blanch a peach. I finally lose patience and just stick the plug in the drain. Why shouldn't I take the time for a bath? Joan, our other trainer, is doing today's lessons, and Dan won't be back until at least tomorrow, so I can wait another day to wash my hair. Besides, a bath might help me decompress.

  After the tub fills, I turn the taps off and lean over, swirling the fingertips of one hand through the water. It feels good, so I climb in.

  As soon as my feet and lower legs are submerged I realize I've seriously underestimated the temperature. I stand perfectly still, debating whether I'll be able to get used to it or have to do something.

  After a couple of seconds, the answer is clear. I shuffle forward so my feet are directly under the faucet and turn the cold on full blast. The relief is instant. I allow the cold water to pool around my stinging legs, and then crouch down to mix it into the rest of the water.

  I should know better than to test a bath like that--one of the permanent souvenirs from my accident is a slight decrease in sensation at the very ends of my fingers. But my legs seem happy now, so I lower my body into the tub and lean back until my head rests against its rim.

  I love this tub. I don't think it's original to the house, but who knows? New England houses have their own secret histories. Whether original or not, it's an antique claw-footed beast of a thing that's long enough for me to stretch out completely and is sloped at such a forgiving angle I can lie comfortably back.

  I grab the facecloth from the towel rack above me and drop it into the tub. As it saturates and sinks, its corners spread like a manta ray, I sit forward and splash my face repeatedly. Then I lie back and drape the washcloth across my forehead and eyes. Water streams over my mouth and chin, drips from the end of my nose.

  Poor Eva--she has every right to be upset with me. Since even I don't entirely understand my reactions, how can I possibly expect her to? And why shouldn't she think that being allowed
to compete at Canterbury was the start of something larger?

  My ambivalence stems from what happened to me, of course, and I realized this long before my recent addiction to self-analysis. What mother wouldn't want to protect her daughter from the type of devastation I suffered? If someone had asked me when Eva was first born whether I'd ever let her on the back of a horse, I'd have laughed. Indeed, if I recall correctly, Mutti did just that and was entirely unamused by my response.

  Of course, this was back when I still foolishly believed I could control what Eva would or wouldn't want to do. It took just under two years for my daughter to disabuse me of that notion. From the moment she uttered her first words, it was clear that although I had married Roger and moved to Minnesota largely to escape anything and everything to do with horses, our daughter was gravitating toward them as inevitably as a salmon to spawning grounds.

  It shouldn't have been a surprise. As far as I can tell, the only thing Eva got from Roger is her brown eyes. Everything else--from her blonde hair to her impetuous nature to her factory-installed love of horses--came from me. I could have moved her to Alaska and homeschooled her or taken her by canoe to deepest Borneo and set us up in a cave. It wouldn't have made a damned bit of difference. She would have wiggled her way into a stable from the South Pole.

  She was a barnacle. Clinging to ponies' legs at petting zoos, kissing the television screen every time a horse appeared and then giggling at the static that zapped her lips, cutting out every picture of every equine she ever saw--including, to Roger's dismay--the ones from our encyclopedias, typing rope "reins" around the end of a thick branch and then skip-cantering around our backyard neighing to herself.

  And so it went. The year Eva was six, the photograph on our Christmas card showed her grooming her favorite Shetland pony while wearing a tutu, fairy wings, and purple muck boots. I believe I was the one behind the camera.

  It wasn't until she was ten and began jumping that Roger had to take over lesson duty. I was happy enough doing it as long as she was riding on the flat, but I simply couldn't bring myself to watch her jump. At first I tried to prevent it, but even at ten Eva was formidable. But it wasn't the cosmic explosion of outrage that persuaded me, or even the long and reasoned arguments presented by my ever-patient ex-husband. When Eva realized I planned to prevent her from jumping anything, ever, I saw myself reflected back through her eyes and I hated what I saw. I never figured out what that was, exactly, but I hated it nonetheless.

  And so Roger began accompanying her to lessons.

  Of course, when I left Roger and returned to my family's horse farm in New Hampshire--

  Wait a minute. I've got to stop doing that. Why do I keep doing that? I didn't leave Roger. He left me.

  Okay. Deep breath--

  When Eva and I moved without Roger to my family's horse farm in New Hampshire, she found herself in hog heaven. Horses everywhere, a whole barn full, hers for the taking twenty-four hours a day.

  Throw near-daily lessons into the mix and I guess it's no real surprise she excelled. And it did pull her back from the brink--she's not exactly a straight-A student, but she's a nearly straight-B student, and that's good enough for me. One of the main reasons I fled Minnesota was that her school career was so clearly in the toilet. I got a note from the principal informing me that she was flunking spectacularly only three and a half weeks before she was expelled for truancy.

  Considering that she subsequently suffered a move and parental split, it's a miracle she's doing as well as she is, and there's no question it's because she turned to riding.

  There's also no question she's good. Scarily good. And that, of course, is the problem.

  If Pappa were still alive, he'd have already taken control of the situation and put her into training. I'd have been left watching, swinging my head back and forth with horrified whiplash, as though at some nightmarish tennis match, as he orchestrated one final campaign toward his--or, as he'd phrase it, "the family's"--Olympic dream.

  But even if I can move beyond my fears, deciding to do this in any kind of serious way would require major changes to all our lives.

  Just the logistics are a nightmare: Eva and me schlepping around the country in a pickup truck hauling whichever horse behind us in a beat-up slat-sided Kingston trailer is not going to cut it on the eventing circuit. To do this, we would need people, equipment, a paradigm shift. Even if I could bring myself to act as Eva's trainer--which is a really big if, considering that my inability to watch her take a fence is the entire reason we hired Joan--we'd need to either take Joan on full-time or hire someone else to replace me while we were on the road. And unless I want to homeschool Eva, we'd also need a tutor. Never mind that we'd spend so much time on the road I'd see even less of Dan than I already do. And poor Mutti would be left on her own for all but the off-season.

  And unless we want to keep the model we used on our way to Canterbury--the one in which I sleep in the parking lot of the motel with the horse while Eva snoozes comfortably in a bedroom inside--we would also have to buy a trailer with a living area. Something like a Sundowner, with a couple of beds, a kitchen, and a bathroom. And if we bought a Sundowner, we'd also have to buy a truck with a dual axle and conversion engine to pull it. And each of those pieces of machinery costs at least as much as the horse we would have to buy to replace Malachite, and all of this would naturally translate into a closer association with Roger and Sonja, because by necessity they'd be bankrolling this whole endeavor.

  I strip the washcloth from my face and, even though I'm sitting alone in a bathtub, look guiltily from side to side. And then I slide back into the water, sick with guilt and desperation.

  There is another option, but neither Mutti nor Eva knows about it. And since I never followed up on that phone call, I reckon it will stay that way.

  I do so want to do the right thing. I really do. I'm just never sure what that is. And the problem with the phone call is that it feels a lot like Pandora's box--I'm afraid that once I tell someone about it, I'll set something in motion that I won't be able to stop.

  Chapter 2

  I'm simultaneously investigating whether I can stop the faucet from dripping by plugging it with my big toe and examining my prune-wrinkled fingers when I'm interrupted by a violent thumping on the door.

  "Ma!" Eva yells through the slatted wood. "Hey, Ma! Phone!"

  I sit forward, sloshing water dangerously close to the tub's rim. "Who is it?"

  But she's gone, stomping down the hall. A moment later her door slams with such force the toothbrushes rattle in the holder above the sink.

  I had been considering adding more hot water and extending my bath, but since Eva isn't giving me the option of calling whoever it is back, I pull the plug and climb out, holding the tub's edge carefully until I have one foot planted squarely on the thick pile of the bathmat. I grab a towel and tuck it around myself.

  On my way to the door, I catch sight of myself in the full-length mirror.

  It's too bad you can't just walk around in towels, because this one is the perfect length for me. It comes just far enough down my thighs to cover my difficult areas while leaving the lean parts exposed. If you didn't know what was immediately above it, you might think I had slim thighs. I might try to find some skirts in this length, although I have almost zero opportunity to wear anything other than jeans or breeches these days. It's not something I repine; it's just something I hadn't really noticed before.

  Come to think of it, maybe I do repine. I can't remember the last time Dan and I went out.

  I stump my way to Mutti's bedroom, leaving wet footprints all the way down the hall. Eva has left the door open, has tossed the receiver on top of Mutti's bed. I pick it up and settle carefully on the edge of the eiderdown. Mutti believes in hospital corners and smooth covers, and I want to limit the repairs I'll have to make later.

  "Hello?"

  "Hey, babe." It's Dan, his voice crackly above the static of a cell phone.

  "Dan! W
here are you?"

  "Still in Canada."

  The smile falls from my face. "Why? What's going on?" I try not to let disappointment color my voice, but I had figured he'd be as far as Ohio by now.

  "Got hold of seven more horses and am waiting for the results of the Coggins tests, that's all. Should be on my way in a day or two."

  Dan is a veterinarian by trade, but his passion--his calling--is running Day Break, his horse rescue center. He's been gone much of the winter, hauling truckloads of horses away from the hundreds of pee farms that are going defunct. Back in the heyday of hormone replacement therapy, it was the foals that needed saving. Now it's all of them--mares, foals, and stallions--and Dan, and every other rescue operation we know, is scrambling to get them out before they end up either as dog food or on a meat counter in Asia.

  "Oh," I say in a small voice. I feel guilty for my disappointment, but I've been counting the minutes until his return. I had been hoping to talk to him about the phone call--to ease my conscience, to hear him tell me I'm doing the right thing. Because of course I'm not sure of this at all.

  There's an uncomfortable pause.

  "Sweetie," he says, "are you okay?"

  "Yes, of course," I say, dropping my forehead into one hand. I want to cry, and hope I can hide it in my voice. "I just miss you."

  "I miss you, too. Is something else going on? You sound funny."

  "It's not important."

  "It's important if you're upset."

  "Eva's mad at me. And I miss you. That's all."

  "Hang in there. I'll be back in a couple of days, tops."

  "Good." I swallow over the lump in my throat and smile, beginning the mental adjustment.

  "Listen, there's another reason I called. I need a favor."

  "Oh?" I say. "What's that?"

  "Is there any way you can spend the next couple of nights at my place?"

  "Sure. Why?"

  "Maisie's set to foal anytime. Chester was staying with her, but all three of his kids came down with strep and his wife was threatening to leave if he didn't come home. Can you take over until I get back?"

  "Um...sure," I say, trying to keep the panic from my voice.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing," I say.

  "You've been at a foaling before, right?"